Well I make that Farage 2, Clegg 0 I would like us to remain in a radically reformed EU with the focus on making the EU a competitive place for business and manufacturers to be based (and paying taxes!). Immigrration/benefits have to be controlled, democracy reinstated. I don't think there's any chance of that happening and still believe the Euro is fatally flawed unless it really turns into a United States of Europe. I don't want to be a part of that. Let's at least have a proper vigorous debate and then a referendum.
The reform of the EU by a UK led initiative won't work because any changes have to be unanimously agreed by member states and that won't happen. Its a smoke screen by the conservatives, the only good side to us is the perceived threat to the EU if we come out. The EU when it was the common market (which the original referendum voted in favour of) was a competitive place for business, not now, the main reason being the Euro and federalist ambitions of certain countries. Thank god John Major kept us out. A Federal European State controlled by the Germans has been the aim for the last 100 years, maybe this time they will get it. OGR
If David Cameron, or anybody else, genuinely wanted to develop a new treaty (in succession to the treaties of Rome, Maastricht, Schengen, Lisbon, accessions, etc.) they could have made a start already. Negotiating each treaty was an enormously complex and demanding task, taking several years to bring to completion, and a new one now would be no easier. It would have to secure the unanimous agreement of 28 governments and 28 parliaments (all of which have their own internal political complications), as well as the European institutions. Each and every one of the 28 members would need to be persuaded that the new arrangements, whatever they are, are on balance to its advantage. Cameron would need to find lots of allies, not just go around grandstanding and antagonising everybody. Starting from now, getting a new treaty in place by 2020 would be very good going indeed. 2016? Not a hope in hell. Especially as Cameron has so far not even stated what he wants. Precisely what treaty provisions should be different than they are? What processes? What legislation? What budgetary arrangements? All we have heard to date has been vague waffle about wanting things to be "reformed" and "better". So the so-called renegotiation is revealed as a sham. To mix metaphors, it is simply a device for kicking the can down the road, and papering over the splits in his party for a few years, exactly like Harold Wilson's "renegotiation" was in 1975.
I enjoyed Nick Clegg getting well and truly flustered. He resorted to lying and shouting over the top of his opponent. He was shown for what he is. It was all a far cry from the love in he enjoyed when Gordon Brown and David Cameron swooned all over him during the general election debates.
